A slump in sales last year has impacted HTC badly, and although they finally seem to have a competitive device and situations this time around, they don’t seem to catch a break, it seems.
In an interview with WSJ, one company executive is claiming that the company is having a difficult time controlling its suppliers, and that is the reason of delays in shipping the HTC One, which was supposed to ship by March, but now pushed to April, with availability varying by regions.
Frequent and drastic changes in forecasts are to be blamed, apparently.
The company has a problem managing its component suppliers as it has changed its order forecasts drastically and frequently following last year’s unexpected slump in shipments. HTC has had difficulty in securing adequate camera components as it is no longer a tier-one customer.
So, to boil it down – suppliers aren’t listening to HTC. HTC doesn’t make its own internals, so it cannot scale like Samsung can, and HTC doesn’t know marketing. The One’s a compelling product, but to be bogged down by these factors is unfortunate.
via WSJ